The Troublemakers
by YAXON
Summary: Naruto's signature Shadow Clone Jutsu can be just as problematic as it is practical. In which Naruto sics his Shadow Clones on the diabolical paperwork and it backfires on him. Severely. Crackfic. One-shot.


**Author's Note: I haven't done an Author's Note in the beginning for a while, but this one-shot requires some explanation. It's a common idea in fanfiction that Naruto will make use of his Shadow Clones to tackle his paperwork as Hokage; at first glance, that seems like a really good idea. Ideally, work productivity would be through the roof, and Naruto could easily become the most popular Hokage. But let's take the fact that Shadow Clones are autonomous, able to think for themselves, and run with that a little bit further. Remember the wise words of Itachi: Every Jutsu has a weakness. Shadow Clones run the risk of memory backlash if produced en masse, but there's also** **the fact that autonomous life forms are being forced to do menial labor… If the** _ **original**_ **Naruto doesn't want to do the paperwork… Then… Hence, this idea was born. Enjoy. :D**

* * *

Naruto Uzumaki, Hero of the Fourth Shinobi World War, the reincarnation of Asura Ootsutsuki, the Hidden Leaf's Number One Hyperactive, Knucklehead Ninja, had at last achieved his childhood dream. No, not the one where he helped open worldwide Ichiraku branch shops… Though he _was_ in a position where he could make that happen; all it took was organizing a system where Academy dropouts would become apprentices of Teuchi and Ayame. Very simple and very efficient; this way dropouts wouldn't become jobless bums because they couldn't make it as shinobi.

… No, Naruto had not achieved that childhood dream yet. He would be working to make that happen, though, now that he had the time. But Naruto had achieved his _other_ childhood dream, the one that everyone seemed to be aware of moreso than what he considered to be his _main_ one. Which is odd considering his fixation on ramen. Yes, he considered the expansion of Ichiraku Ramen to be a more sacred mission than becoming Hokage. The Old Man just convinced him to… tone it down a little. Something about achieving world peace through the power of ramen not being a feasible method of ending conflicts. But hey, when you're four years old and the village pariah, you tend to hatch some harebrained schemes to 'help' the few people that will acknowledge your existence. The Old Man might have been able to talk him into becoming a shinobi, but that dream of 'peace, love, and ramen' never faded even as he got older…

Nevertheless, our plucky young hero had been installed as the Seventh Fire Shadow at the age of thirty two. Yes, Naruto had become _Hokage_.

After about fifteen years under Kakashi Hatake's rule, the people of the Village Hidden in the Leaves could relax a little. Their leader was no longer a blatant reader of porn, and people could return to the bathhouses without fear of them turning into a mixed hot springs for the enjoyment of perverts young and old alike. Housewives no longer had to worry about the threat of a potential miniskirt dress code. Things would go back to _normal_ with Naruto at the helm.

Well, mostly normal. All the super-powerful shinobi had their quirks. Naruto's just happened to be a mostly-harmless, ramen-fixated quirk. Far more innocent than Kakashi's…

If only the people knew of the havoc to come.

"Are you sure you'll be alright, Naruto-kun? Can I trust you to get the paperwork done on time?" Shizune's kind smile twitched somewhat forcefully. Lady Tsunade was more likely to get sloshed than to bother with the paper menace. And everyone knew of Lord Kakashi's _tardiness policy_ …

Hey, the man might've gotten more paperwork done than his predecessor, but he never, ever turned it in on time. Shizune shuddered to think what it would have been like to have Obito in charge as Hokage…

"Don't worry about it, Shizune! I totally got this covered! I'll outdo Grandma and Kaka-sensei and get it all in _early_! Believe it!"

… Well, at least he was confident… Shizune gave it one day, two tops, before his spirit was broken utterly and completely. Not even the Third Hokage, the Professor, could make this aspect of the job easier. And he'd been in power the longest out of any Hokage! Only Lord Fourth seemed to _enjoy_ the paperwork; though considering how many massacres he created during the Third War, it comes as no surprise. Tedious, monotonous paperwork had to be better than spilling blood like it was going out of style.

"Well, I'll be downstairs if you need me… _Please_ call if you ever get stuck, Naruto-kun. I will be more than happy to drop whatever I'm doing and help."

Naruto waved off her concerns amicably.

"I got it, I got it! You just worry about your own workload, Shizune-neechan. I've got it covered, y'know!"

Shizune continued to stand there, smiling twitchily for just a few more moments before turning on her heel and exiting the room. She'd put her faith in Naruto; the boy, now man, had accomplished many miracles throughout the years. Maybe she was worried for nothing…

As the door clicked shut, Naruto strode around the desk and sat experimentally in what was now his chair. He'd sat in that chair a few times over the years – mostly when he was a kid, and the Old Man allowed it. But now it was his. His chair, his desk, and his office. Naruto kinda liked thinking that way; now _he_ would be the one assigning children tedious chores like chasing heinous felines! No wonder Sasuke-teme craved power so much. He couldn't wait to hand out his first Fetch Tora mission.

That would come later. First Naruto needed to go through the stacks on his desk. Stacks that easily reached to the top of his head, and covered the width of the desk from one edge to another.

"Jeez… Did Kaka-sensei do _anything_ last week?" Naruto grinned and picked the first sheet up off of a random stack. "Whatever. How hard can this be?"

It didn't take Naruto long to decide to take a break. In his defense, he'd gone through a whole stack and sorted it into appropriate stacks on the floor.

"How long was that? Five minutes?" Naruto chuckled to himself and glanced at his watch. Hours. It had been two hours. "… Crap. No wonder Granny and Kaka-sensei moaned and groaned about this stuff. It eats up all your day! How'm I gonna keep my word about getting this done early?"

Ideally, the secretaries wanted all of the documents turned in the day after tomorrow – hey, Naruto might've had a lot of important stuff that needed to be seen to yesterday, but it wasn't his fault his Sensei was an asshole and foisted off his last bit of paperwork on him. Getting it all tomorrow morning would have been even more ideal, but they were kind enough to cut the newbie some slack.

So they wanted Naruto's desk cleaned off in two days.

Naruto slapped his forehead exaggeratedly as a goofy grin made its way to his lips.

"Duh! How else do I win battles and keep promises?! By spamming Shadow Clones!" Naruto made the required hand sign and schooled his features in fierce determination. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Ten medium-sized plumes of smoke surrounded Naruto and the desk, and in the next moment there were eleven Naruto's, including the original.

"All right, guys; I need you to continue going through this while I take a ten minute break! Get to it!" Naruto gleefully giggled, slipped past the Clones without waiting for affirmatives, and left the office.

The ten Shadow Clones eyed one another wearily, grumbled amongst themselves, and started leafing through the papers left on the desk. It didn't take long before one of the Shadow Clones became fed up.

"Damn it, this is _bullshit_! How many times has our Original looked at a problem and thought, 'Ooh, I can beat that with Shadow Clones! That's not so tough!' We die more hardcore deaths than actual cannon fodder, and we're the ones that do most of the training for our Original." The Shadow Clone grandiosely gestured at the piles of papers before them. "And _this_ is our reward? I was kinda hoping for a retirement package; well, maybe not literally, but a thank-you would've been nice. I thought we would gradually see less and less use. But if this is how he's gonna use us now…"

Another Shadow Clone idly scratched the back of his ear.

"Haven't we been through something like this before? I swear we have…"

"Nah, that was a dream of a Shadow Clone. It was a nice dream, though," a third Shadow Clone piped up with a goofy grin. All the Shadow Clones couldn't help but smile fondly at the memory.

"So we _shouldn't_ do whatever the hell we want?" A fourth Shadow Clone asked surreptitiously. Silence fell over the group as the question was finally out in the open.

"Well… We kinda can't. I mean, he can dispel us. I don't wanna go to the afterlife so soon after being created." The second Shadow Clone answered. He got some mutual nods of agreement from a few Clones. To them, their Creator was their afterlife, so…

"Then we don't get caught!" A fifth Shadow Clone boldly declared. "We're ninja, so we should act like it!"

A sixth Shadow Clone pumped his fist in the air and cheered.

"Yeah! Nobody outruns Anbu like us, and we wear _orange_!"

"Which is the sweetest color ever!" A seventh Shadow Clone felt obligated to add.

"We beat Kaguya!" The eighth Shadow Clone contributed to the positive atmosphere.

"And Sasuke-teme!" The ninth Shadow Clone added just as boisterously.

"Our Original is the Hokage, so are we!" The tenth Shadow Clone concluded triumphantly. "We're like… the Hokage Confederation or somethin'!"

Mischievous smirks passed over all ten faces, and they cried in unison.

"We are legion!"

Giggles all around. But then a thought occurred to the third Shadow Clone.

"Wait… if we're all out and about, our Creator is sure to dispel us all right away… Someone's gotta take one for the team."

"No way!" The fifth Shadow Clone cried. "That's way too much paperwork for one Clone! Two should stay behind. Maybe they can incapacitate our Original when he gets back?"

"Yeah! And then steal his wallet!" The sixth Shadow Clone cackled.

In response, the other nine Shadow Clones took out their frog wallets and dropped them on the floor experimentally. Of course they poofed away. They chuckled evilly at Number Six's idea. Yes… They needed real money for ramen… All hail the Ramen!

They then determined the Shadow Clones to stay behind by process of 'Not it!' Poor, poor Numbers One and Eight.

"Okay!" Let's move out!" Number Two exclaimed, and all the Clones except Numbers One and Eight leaped out the window to the Office. Numbers One and Eight grumbled about the unfairness of it all, but they knew that the process of 'Not it!' was absolute. There were no takebacks – it's like in the bro code or something.

As the two Clones proceeded to sort through the papers on the desk, Number Eight came across something interesting.

"Hmm… Marriage contract…"

Number One peeked over Number Eight's shoulder and grinned at the document. He checked out the stack that sheet came off of and discovered the whole thing was nothing but marriage contracts. Not just any marriage contracts, either; contracts specifically between the Original and various girls throughout the village. Young, old, sane, insane, didn't matter. They aaall wanted to marry Naruto Uzumaki, believe it!

It really paid to have fangirls.

Number One came to the same evil revelation as Number Eight; they could really work with this. _This_ would be fun to do. They _did_ need to restore the Uzumaki Clan, after all, and two kids could hardly be enough to resurrect the whole darn thing… Surely Hinata-chan wouldn't mind sharing, right? Right?

There was that Clan Restoration Act in place, so they should be fine. Should. Probably not, though. Eh. It was the Original's problem, not theirs.

In any event, Numbers One and Eight began going through the stack and stamping them with the Hokage's Seal of Approval with gusto. Their Original deserved the fallout. Foist the paperwork off on them, would he…?

* * *

As the other eight Clones moved out, a pair toward the back started chatting.

"So what you gonna do? I was thinking of heading over to the Academy for some, um… impromptu sparring with the kids."

Naruto loved the Academy kids so much. But some of those kids just _had_ to go bad-talking Ramen after his twenty minute sermon that he delivered to the Academy a few weeks ago. Ask not how he managed to talk about ramen for twenty minutes; ask how he managed to _cut back_ his sermon so that it was only twenty minutes long.

Well, Naruto now had some prospective twerps for the Ichiraku-apprenticeship program. Yup.

"Ehhh… I was thinkin' of peeking at the Forbidden Scroll again. Well. It's forbidden to everyone else now; for once I _can_ look at it. Y'know, legitimately." Naruto Number Seven grinned toothily at Number Six. Number Six looked at Number Seven warily.

"Okay. Just don't go off half-cocked, y'know? What you learn our Original learns. And the next generation of Clones might not be enlightened like us."

Number Seven waved Number Six off dismissively.

"You worry too much! I only wanted to learn the Great Shadow Clone Explosion technique. Y'know, the one Itachi used way back when. Kaka-sensei was an idiot and put the technique in that scroll, said something about keeping the technique out of the hands of ne'er-do-wells that would abuse it. While looking at our Original suspiciously! Can you believe it?!"

"Adding that to our repertoire would be nice," Number Six began salivating. Explosions had a way of getting rid of a lot of your problems. Why do ya think the Tailed Beasts' main form of attack is to conjure a giant ball of destructive power? And the Great Shadow Clone Explosion technique was, like, the one technique they could make use of that their Original couldn't.

Well, not if he wanted to be scattered into atoms.

"Well, I'm off, then! Teach those brats a lesson!" Number Seven saluted and shot off in one direction to acquire the Forbidden Scroll. Number Six continued on for a bit in a stupor until he slammed into a wall and popped. For a while, the remaining six Shadow Clones just stared.

"… We really need to be more careful." Number Three muttered. "All it takes is one hit, and BAM! … Number Six kinda hit himself there. Sooo…"

"But now He knows!" Number Four frantically replied, clutching at his blond locks. "We're screwed!"

"No, no," Number Two insisted, hands held up haltingly. " _First_ our Original will check in at the Office, to make sure he isn't remembering things. Numbers One and Eight will restrain him, and everything will be hunky-dory, okay? Just… Just calm down."

"But He can dispel us!" Number Five wailed in the same pose as Number Four. "At any time! We're dooooomed!"

Number Ten moved to smack some sense into Number Five with a bitch-slap, but was held back by Number Nine, who wagged his pointer finger at him.

"No, no, no. That attitude pisses me off, too, but if you give into your irritation, pretty soon there won't be any of us left. We gotta show restraint and not hit each other, even if we're really being dumb. Don't you worry, we will avenge our Fallen Brother. Or at least honor his memory. Why don't you take your anger out on the Ramen Blasphemers at the Academy? It's what Number Six would have wanted."

Number Ten, the back of his hand still poised in the air, paused and ruminated on it. Eventually he lowered his hand and nodded grimly.

"Right, right… See ya." With that, Number Ten shunshined away in a swirl of leaves. The remaining five Clones exchanged looks.

"Well, gentlemen? Any ideas?" Number Three posed the question. With so few of them and their fragility, they would need to be very careful…

Which is to say, they ended up throwing all caution to the wind. Carpe Diem, mothafucka!

* * *

Naruto knew something was up when his Shadow Clone dispelled. Outside the Hokage Tower. The blond Uzumaki sighed morosely when that happened; it meant his break would not be as relaxing as he envisioned. As anticipated by his Shadow Clones, Naruto went to check on the Office first, to see if any work had actually got done, but he got a Frog Kumite smack to the face for his trouble.

Number Eight grinned down at the prone, unconscious form of his Progenitor and pumped his fist in the air cheerfully. Sage Jutsu was the best stuff ever. It expanded the senses, _and_ it kept him from dispelling after such a hard hit. A hit that rendered his Progenitor unconscious, believe it!

"How's the paperwork comin'?!" Number Eight chirped. Number One grinned widely.

"Tax cuts all around, and every building will be painted orange by the end of the month!"

"Excellent."

* * *

When Naruto next awoke, hours and hours and hours later, it was with growing horror and trepidation. He had looots of memories that he didn't remember specifically doing himself, and the worst part was that it was sunrise. Meaning that he had been knocked out for a day _at least_.

Naruto looked around the Office warily. He was seated at his desk again, and all the paperwork was gone. As was his frog wallet, apparently…

Moreover, though, he had a lot of stuff outside the Office to worry about. A Clone had run roughshod over a whole Academy class and put them in the hospital… Another went and emptied his frog wallet at Ichiraku's and put at least a dozen more meals on his tab… Another went and got drunk off of Granny's sake reserves… Another perved on the women in the hot springs and began writing the next generation of Icha Icha… _Another_ went and started the First Church of Ramen… One went and learned the Great Shadow Clone Explosion technique and then went the way of Deidara… And two Shadow Clones remained here in the Office to file out the paperwork.

And cause dozens of more headaches for him. Including forcing him into a village-sized harem… Damn. Hinata was gonna end him. Brutally. If Himawari and Boruto didn't do it first. Or Tsunade… or those bathing women… or…

Yeah… He was screwed.

Including the one that dispelled by walking into a wall, that made for nine different memories. There was one unaccounted for, and Naruto had the faintest idea that he did _not_ want to know what that one had been up to. Or was still up to. Because really, if he didn't have the memories, then the Clone was still out there, somewhere.

"Fuck." Naruto slammed his head down on the barren, squeaky-clean desk and began sobbing. This was gonna be a bitch to clean up, and Naruto knew _he_ would be the one cleaning it up because he couldn't just delegate this cleanup to somebody else. It was his fault his Clones ran amok, so he would have to take responsibility…

And then the tenth Clone's memories came in, and Naruto sat rigidly back up with glazed-over eyes. He muttered under his breath.

"Why are my Clones such perverts, y'know? Jeez."

Because there was no other plausible explanation for the tenth Shadow Clone's smoking hot sex with his wife that lasted much of the night. Was it him? 'Cause his mindscape _was_ technically a sewer…

Either way, it looked like Boruto and Himawari might be getting a younger sibling… If Shadow Clones can get women impregnated. Naruto was kinda hoping that wouldn't be the case; otherwise, he'd never be able to use the Shadow Clone Jutsu again, out of fear they would go off and have sex with other women. And cause him to go bankrupt to pay for child support, as a result.

Naruto wept for the loss of his signature Jutsu. Stupid Shadow Clones. They'd gone from problem-solvers to troublemakers. It just wasn't _fair_.


End file.
